On things I want: Inspired by Homesickness August 30, 2011
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Uncategorized.add a comment
The things you miss when away from home are often the obvious. Your family, your friends, the people you love and the person whose kisses you need to stop you feeling so alone. Then, however, there is list of things that aren’t quite so obvious, the unexpected luxuries that you never suspected you might long for.
This is my list of such silly luxuries. Such inconsequential items that could cheer me up (though I must take pains to say i am not by any means unhappy!) in an instant:
- My mum’s Boston Baked Beans.
- Straight hair!
- A pasty. A cornish one…
- English weather.
- English prices!
- My lovely lovely laptop.
- The ability to phone people.
- A varied wardrobe.
- Double beds.
- Baths – and I don’t even take baths very often!
RTW Trip Update 2: Down to the Whitsundays August 22, 2011
Posted by Lauren Cooke in RTW Trip Updates, Travel.Tags: holiday, RTW Trip, Travel
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So, what a lot has happened since I last updated you. Where shall I start?
Well, after leaving Cairns I headed down to Mission Beach. T0 be honest, I don’t really know why I got it into my head that this was where I wanted to go – it’s a long long beach that was ripped apart by the February cyclone, and which is pretty much just the destination of people wanting to jump out of planes at 14,000 feet to land on the beach. Needless to say that is not me (hah!) so I spent a somewhat depressing day being ignored by the cliques and reading my book with a sulky expression on my face. The next day I escaped, getting out of there and to Magnetic Island as fast as you could say “bored to death”!
Those are our huts...
Thankfully it went up from there on in. I arrived at Maggie, or Magnetic Island, and it was all wonderful. The people were nice (and we kind of did things as a group which was awesome), and perhaps more importantly the room was a log cabin literally centimeters from the bright blue ocean. I somehow doubt I will ever spend a night anywhere as superbly located again.
As well as the location, the island itself was great. We walked (for 10k, turns out this hurts a lot when you are as grossly unfit as I currently am!) all up and down the hills, in the blazing heat, arriving on the other side knackered but kind of satisfied – and very glad to get a chance to refill our empty water bottles. It just kept getting better too – after a lunch of the best calamari I have ever had in my life (I mean, like, wow) we adventured into the Koala sanctuary, where as well as getting to hold the super cute Koala we also got to hold and poke various Australian animals. Me being me, and pleased by anything exciting and zoological, I was in my element!
- Koala! Cute Koala!
Now I’m in Airlie beach, killing time before I head out on a 2 day sailing trip to explore the beauty of the Whitsunday islands. I’ve got my goon, I’m all packed, so bring on the boat!
RTW Trip Update 1: Welcome to Cairns August 16, 2011
Posted by Lauren Cooke in RTW Trip Updates.Tags: RTW Blog, RTW Trip, RTW Trip updates, Travel, Travel blog
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Gosh I’ll tell you what – this travelling malarkey isn’t half scary! I know I’m stating the obvious, but despite my terror prior to getting on the plane, I don’t really think I had realised how utterly mind-blowingly freak-out-worthy it could be when you actually touched down. Still, touch down I did, a 30-hours-down-the-line bundle of nerves and hormones, strolling (read shuffling in an exhausted fashion, biting back tears) up and down unfamiliar pounding hot Cairns city streets.
So, what did I do, in a new city and brutally alone? I freaked. My poor mother got a message something along the lines of “aaaarghh I want to come home, come get me”, whilst my Andy got a largely babbling and incoherent email, looking back over which makes me feel nervous again, so desperate are my tears and stresses that they practically crawl out of the computer screen. Even Facebook was hit with the mania, potentially in the hope that someone would come to my rescue with the invention of a cheap and accessible teleportation device that would get me straight home lickety split.
The only way to deal with this was to sleep, and once I’d done that for 15 hours (15 wiggly freak out filled hours, I must admit), the world seemed a somewhat less stressful place. I was up and about, and I have to admit to really liking Cairns. There’s a pretty man-made lagoon down by the semblance of a beach, I took a trip out to a rainforest topped coral cay (where I saw sea turtles. And whales!), I got burned in the sun because it turns out by yourself you can’t successfully suncream your back (who knew?!). I have a trip planned with one of the girls in my hostel room tomorrow to the botanical gardens, and I’ve just booked the next step of the trip (Mission Beach, but please please please don’t try to persuade me it makes sense to jump out of an airplane to land on it. I’ll walk thanks).
Sea Turtle Green Island
So, what it this thoroughly jumbled and slightly hyper post trying to say? That I think, I think, I’ll be OK. I am missing people desperately (and they are no doubt fed up of me saying it, and quite glad I went away), but I’ll deal with that and it will all be wonderful. Well, if not wonderful, good at least.
Now I’m off to write my first batch of postcards – but only very special people are going to get them super regularly, as the stamps cost an arm and a leg!
Byee!
The Complete Illogicality Of Hormones August 3, 2011
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Depression, Life, Chatter & Politics.Tags: hormones, insanity, pms
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Last night was lovely. I made rather scrumptious (if I do say so myself) sausage and mash, I snuggled up on the sofa watching dodgy TV (a boyfriend who admits to liking watching Britain’s Next Top Model? Ideal!) and I felt very happy and content. Then I buggered everything up.
How did I do this? Well, if you want my excuses, it was hot. The kind of solid wall of heat that crawls over you, pinning you down, making your head heavy and your mind sticky. I also felt decidedly odd – I came over all hot and flushed, with a sickness in the pit of my belly and that (worryingly familiar) ache in my head. I was hormonal, and tetchy, and something came on the TV about a series of programmes explaining some key interesting areas of science.
And, for some reason, I ranted. Which, as a scientifically open individual, I found strange. I let off a bubble of hormonally driven drivel about something largely nonsensical to do with science never proving anything (??), and priorities being wrong (!!), and other such rambling strangeness that seemingly came from nowhere, and which hit neatly on the (sensible and totally correct) wall of Andy’s analytical/scientific brain. Then I burst into tears. The last time I did something like this I ended up sobbing into my (somewhat taken aback) mother’s arms about an obscure strain of mountain Buddhism, muttering about how they’d better never make me give up material goods. It was odd, albeit good proof for the “Lauren Is Bonkers” hypothesis that I always keep on the shelf.
The evening was, of course, somewhat spoilt by the re-emergence of an old foe, “Lauren The Twit”. Plus, by that point my hormonal head was hurting, I was too hot to sleep, and all I really wanted to do was curl myself up in a dark corner with a crap book and an air of don’t-approach-her-you-never-know-what-she’ll-come-out-with-next about me. So, having cried and over-apologised and generally moped and groped, I finally fell asleep far too late.
I did have very cool Formula 1 inspired dreams though, which was something of a saving grace.
Anyway, here’s hoping that Andy won’t judge me too harshly for the escapee strain of insanity. I think it is tucked up back in its bubble. I think.
The Importance of Humdrum August 1, 2011
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Life, Chatter & Politics.Tags: Adventure, Humdrum, Life, living, philosphy
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Life is about living, they say. If you aren’t out there each and every day, experiencing everything you can, then you are missing out. Life simply isn’t as good as it could be if you aren’t deep in the middle of it, climbing obscure South American mountains, eating peculiar foods, dancing with your eyes closed whilst everyone watches.
In a way, this is true. Of course it is. If you don’t make the most out of your life, push yourself and mix things up and generally “experience”, then you probably aren’t feeling everything it has to offer. Instead you are staying safe and secure, comfortable in the knowledge of the regular and the everyday. You are limiting yourself, unwilling to embrace the dangerous and the alien just to see what comes of them.
Still, no matter how much this is the case, I feel someone needs to stand up for the humdrum. The safe, the warm, the familiar. Because this is the thing that we come back to. Humdrum is the thing that we call home. It is a hug from someone you love when everything gets too much, the relaxing mind-blank of an evening spend collapsed in front of the television set. It is coming home to security, and familiarity, and the distinct happiness of everything being normal, and alright, and good.
On its own, humdrum is boring and dull. But with people you love, trapped between adventure and mischief, humdrum can be the very thing that keeps you going.
